Warrior

First I am going to assume he is a class that players can be (and therefore, not a Tinker). Two things narrow down the class list right away. Clearly Mekkatorque wears plate, and his eyes do not glow blue, which leaves us with Warrior and Paladin.

Mekkatorque fights with a one handed mace, and shield. That fact would seem to run counter to Arms and Fury Warriors, and Holy and Retribution Paladins.

So he must protection spec’ed, either as a Warrior or Paladin.

Player gnomes can not be paladins, but NPCs seem to be able to skirt class restrictions. Lets call the fact that PC gnomes can’t be Paladins +1 for Warrior, and -1 for Paladin.

The Freethinker’s Plate Gelbin wears, and mace he wields give a bonus’ to intellect. In fact most armor from engineering or with armors that features moving gears on it gives intellect, like the Timepiece of the Bronze Flight. That’s +1 for Paladin. In addition to that maces are a part of the paladin kit. Gnomeregan has an ‘official’ sword in the Gnomeregan Bone Chopper. Many gnome NPC’s in New Tinkertown use it, but not Mekkatorque, +1/2 for paladin.

Mekkatorque also shoots lasers! Mekkatorque Ray is a beam of light that he shoots at Crushcog. The visual on Mekkatorque Missile is also a large flash of light. His third non-melee attack is a Goblin Dragon Gun, which come from engineering and not a class. Light based attacks +1 paladin.

Mekkatorque is always jolly. He laughs a lot! We never see any RAGE from him. -1 Warrior.

That brings the score to Warrior 0, Paladin 1.5

But math is boring and non-descriptiveness, so lets look at Mekkatorque’s story and see what we can find. My theory is that Mekkatorque has been either a Warrior or Tinker since the launch of the game. It fit with the gnome kit at the time, and there was not a lot of development for gnomes in Vanilla beyond The Grand Betrayal.

You receive an artifact of great power from a Naaru that you bring to Mekkatoque. Mekkatorque takes the concentrated light from you to make an artifact to destroy the undead. This is very similar to how the Ashbringer was made by Magni Bronzebeard. Magni was not a paladin, but he also did not use the Ashbringer, he gave it to a Paladin.

But does Gelbin give what he has created to the player to wield? No. He KEEPS it. I think that Gelbin Mekkatorque when presented with the raw power of Light directly from a Naaru, took that power and he kept it, used it create the mace he now carries (Which has a light bulb on top) and began transitioning to be a Paladin. It is at the END of the Lich King expansion (Patch 3.3) that Gelbin puts on his full set of Intellect plate and start wielding this new weapon.

My conclusion is that Gelbin Mekkatorque did not start as a Paladin, but that he is one now, and he is waiting until he is comfortable in his master of these powers before he begins to teach other gnomes this new discipline.

Death Knight – The glowing blue eyes
are cool. but the custom faces and hair colors are lackluster.

What could they use? Half skull! like in the movie “War of the Colossal Beast (1958)” More skeletal features, maybe pustules like the super zombies.

Druid – Druids and character customization are not friendly. Any option you give to the base model you have to give to the animal forms. For some reason Animal forms are treated like individual creatures rather than as races, so it’s a lot more work to customize them.

Malfurion gives us a lot to work with. Antlers are obvious, but we have plenty of transmogs to handle those.

Druids could ‘grow'(?) feathers and clawed hands and feet, maybe a beak if you like that.

Mage – Mages are mostly normal people. What could a mages have? Probably something floating around them, like ion stones.

Monk – I’m good with Monks because they already have full sets of custom animations that no one gets. That’s great! New Run/Walk/Stand animations might work to set them more apart, but making those look different AND natural could be a big challenge.

Paladin – I would like the see the Draenei share their forehead glow rune with other paladins. Make it a quest to go get blessed by a Naaru and it could change depending on which one you visit.

Priest – Thematically Priests and Paladins have been similar for a long time.

Priests could glow with an Aura that changes color based on race and spec, but I also want to stay away from too many particle effects.

Shaman and Warlock – For me these too classes have the problem of overlapping with the new Demon Hunters.

I would give shamans tattoos. It would not be hard to make the tattoos look very different from the demon hunter ones. A different set of colors alone would accomplish that.

Warlocks, all I can think of is horns and wings.

Hunter, Rogue, and Warrior – Hunter along with Rogue and Warrior are kind of generic. Best I could think of was allowing rogues to scale down to be ~6 in. shorter, Warriors to scale up to be ~6 in. taller.

For Hunters… scars? There is no reason to give hunters scars over the other two. My warrior needs badass scars on his face like Varian, but I can’t imagine what to give hunters, without going back to the animal features available to Druids above.

I’m having the bibliotech at Gearshaft University added to the binary buzz box system.

Looks like their used to be Gnomish Orders. The tinkers unions for Gnomish and Goblin engineering have survived, but a ton of groups have become obsolete. I’ll be posting those as I get them translated. Some of them have made it in some way to the modern world, there are others I can’t understand what they ever did.

Here are the first few. They appear to be Warrior groups.

Teratrooper Infantry – These gnomes armed with sword and shield patrolled the natural tunnels that connect to Gnomeregan. They were trained to stand together in tight formation and cut off narrow passages with their shields. The Force Reactive Disk was invented by them for them with the intent to interlock and dig in to the walls of a tunnel. This tradition has continued on in to the modern Gnomeregan Infantry.

They are represented as a bulwark guarding interlocking gears.

Sentry Committee – These gnomes guarded the surface of Gnomeregan. They specialized in the larger weapons used by other races. The idea apparently being that by using the largest weapons possible they would prove they were equally capable in martial ability. Because of Gnomeregans narrow entrance, there were far fewer of these gnomes. They were finally disbanded when the gnome monarchy ordered Gnomeregan sealed.

They are represented by three weapons with one handle.

The Pummelers – In the notes above there are references to another group called ‘The Pummelers’. This appears to be a derogatory term for gnomes that did not have the discipline to operate in the tight groups of the Infantry, or the technical prowess of the Sentries. These gnomes put more ’emotion’ in to their battles than any other. There are records of some as champions.

They are represented by a large hammer made of loose bolts. (This seems to have originated as a derogatory image assigned TO the group that they later adopted.)